Gu Long's World: Starting with the Legend of Chu Liuxiang

At the foot of the ethereal mountain, Jiang Fengyue returned as dusk approached.

He was driving three donkeys all by himself.

Three donkeys pulled three large carts, which were filled with rice, flour, cooking oil, fresh meat, vegetables, spices, and wine. There were also two large black boxes, the contents of which could not be seen.

This was the place with the thickest fog. No matter how much Jiang Fengyue whipped the donkey, it refused to take another step uphill, as if it were afraid of something.

Jiang Fengyue had no choice but to knock the donkey unconscious and tie it to a cart, intending to pull the carts up by himself.

Just then, two people appeared in the pale yellow mist of dusk.

Two people dressed in hemp clothing, one of whom was a familiar face, gave Jiang Fengyue an idea, and she stepped forward.

The short man in hemp clothing saw a figure approaching and shouted, "Who is it?"

Jiang Fengyue walked towards him with a smile and said, "Brother, don't you even recognize me?"

When the short man in hemp clothing saw Jiang Fengyue, his expression was no better than when he saw a stranger. Recalling the two times he had been beaten down by Jiang Fengyue, he was still terrified.

The short man in hemp clothing asked, "The protector said you were the one who went to buy the grain. Where is the grain?"

Jiang Fengyue pointed behind her and smiled, "The grain is right there, but we'll need your help a little."

As the fog thickened, the short, hemp-clad man could no longer see anything through it and sneered, "Look at you, so strong and sturdy, how come you can't even carry a little bit of grain?"

Jiang Fengyue said, "Brother, you're very strong. Then I'll trouble you to carry the grain upstairs."

The short, hemp-clad man scoffed, "Fine, I'll move it. I can do it all by myself..."

He saw the three large flatbed carts and was speechless for a moment; he had never seen so much food in his life.

Jiang Fengyue smiled and said, "Please."

After speaking, Jiang Fengyue used her lightness skill to fly straight up the mountain.

After dusk, it is now night.

Jiang Fengyue waited for half an hour at the stone gate in front of the rocky mountain before the short man in hemp clothing finally brought up three carts.

Pulling a cart is not difficult for someone who practices martial arts, since a person is much stronger than a donkey. However, the mountain road is too rugged, and it is really a test of one's patience to pull the cart up.

The stone gate slowly opened, and Jiang Fengyue instructed people to take the food and wine from the carriage and bring them to the place where they could start a fire.

Jiang Fengyue then moved the two large black boxes to his room.

The next morning, Jiang Fengyue got up early to prepare the raw meat. First, she blanched it, then added spices and wine to simmer it. Soon, she was busy preparing for the banquet.

The banquet was held in the open space below the altar. Apart from worship ceremonies, the followers of the Ma Yi sect never came here for any other reason.

There were twenty stone tables set up in the open space, just enough to seat more than a hundred members of the Ma Yi Sect.

Each stone table was laden with wine and meat. Only when Zhang Jiejie and Chu Liuxiang appeared on the altar did the followers of the Ma Yi Sect dare to sit down.

The feast began quickly. Many of the people here had never left since birth, and these ordinary meat dishes were the best food they had ever eaten in their lives.

Few members of the Ma Yi Sect drink alcohol, but today is a happy day, and with Chu Liuxiang going from table to table urging everyone to drink, everyone has had a little bit of alcohol.

Happy times always pass quickly, and the banquet soon came to an end, but with this start, how could their meals be any worse?

No, the next day Jiang Fengyue still cooked himself. No one would object to eating delicious food, so no one stopped Jiang Fengyue from going to the stove.

Besides, Jiang Fengyue didn't want to eat those unpalatable things here anymore.

After finishing her meal, Jiang Fengyue returned to her stone chamber and opened one of the black boxes. The box was not black at all; instead, it was dazzlingly bright.

Most women in the world would be captivated by this box because it contains beautiful women's clothing.

Jiang Fengyue kept the door of the stone chamber open, staring at everyone coming and going. Everyone was wearing a hemp garment. Perhaps it wasn't that they could only wear hemp garments, but that hemp garments were all they had.

After a while, Jiang Fengyue grabbed a passing woman from the Ma Yi Sect and stuffed a piece of clothing into her hand.

The woman from the Ma Yi sect exclaimed in surprise, "What is this?"

Jiang Fengyue smiled and said, "It's for you."

The woman from the Ma Yi sect examined the object in her hand carefully, realized it was clothing, and frowned, saying, "I can't wear this."

Jiang Fengyue said, "Whether you wear it or not is your freedom. You can take it back or throw it away, that's also your freedom."

The woman from the Ma Yi Sect gritted her teeth, stuffed the clothes into her own Ma Yi robe, and left.

Jiang Fengyue used this method to send out many more pieces of clothing.

The women of the Ma Yi Yi Cult were all very thin and about the same height, so Jiang Fengyue wasn't worried that the clothes wouldn't fit.

Half a day later, he opened another black box, which contained many gleaming silver ingots, as well as dice and dominoes that he had bought from the casino.

Jiang Fengyue took the dice and some silver and sat down in front of an open space where many people usually passed by.

He kept shaking the dice to attract passersby, and soon two men in hemp clothing stopped in their tracks.

One of the men in hemp clothing asked, "What are you doing?"

Jiang Fengyue laughed and said, "I'm playing a guessing game."

The man in hemp clothing pointed at the dice in Jiang Fengyue's hand and asked, "Are we playing with these? How do we play?"

Jiang Fengyue slowly said, "These three things are called dice. Each die has six sides, and each side has a number. If the sum of the three dice is four to ten, the person who guessed 'small' wins. If the sum is eleven to seventeen, the person who guessed 'big' wins. If the three numbers on the three dice are the same, the dealer, who is the person who rolled the dice, wins."

Another person dressed in hemp clothing said, "It doesn't sound difficult."

Jiang Fengyue took out a silver ingot and said with a smile, "If you want to play, I can give each of you one hundred taels of silver to guess big or small."

The man in hemp clothing knew what silver was, but still asked doubtfully, "Silver? But what use would we have for silver?"

Jiang Fengyue fiddled with the gleaming silver in her hand and said, "Just because you don't need it now doesn't mean you won't need it in the future. Even if this thing is useless, having more silver proves that you're very good at playing the 'big or small' game."

At Jiang Fengyue's urging, the two men in hemp clothing quickly started playing, and more and more people came to join in.

Jiang Fengyue gave them all silver. Every day after lunch, he would sit here and host the gambling games. After playing the game of guessing big or small for a long time, he would get tired of it, so he taught the followers of the Ma Yi Sect how to play Pai Gow.

Silver circulated continuously among these men in hemp clothing. Jiang Fengyue soon no longer needed to be the bookmaker, because some clever people discovered that the bookmaker always won more than others, so they rushed to open betting pools and become the bookmaker.

As the days passed, the fine wine and food that Jiang Fengyue brought back were quickly consumed. The Ma Yi Sect returned to eating simple porridge and wild vegetables.

Half a month later, Chu Liuxiang approached Jiang Fengyue.